(Time Turner)

[Stacy Stroud]

No: HPFGUIDX 32889

At 02:49 PM 1/6/02 -0000, Brian Yoon wrote:

[On possible explanations for how Hermione was able to use the Time-Turner to attend different classes at the same time but never used it to catch up on sleep]

>1. As long as different people see the Hermione (such as Ron and Harry's
>classmates in the class they share and Hermione's own classmates), it's all
>gravy.

I think that's the idea, yeah.  Ron and Harry were the only ones hanging around Hermione constantly enough to even begin to suspect that she was in both classes at the same time, and even when they did, they never quite wondered *enough* to start asking her pointed questions about doing the physically impossible.

The only thing she can't do is risk changing something one version of herself remembers by the actions of her other self.  But as long as the two Hermiones are in separate classes and interact with separate groups of people, that has less danger of happening.

>
>2.  It taxes the mind, so that people are loathe to use it multiple times.
>In fact, using it and sleeping is useless, as the user is as tired as if
>s/he did not sleep.

That's a great idea.  I too had been wondering why Hermione didn't use the TT to make up for all the exhausting studying she had to do, by giving herself more time for sleep.  She just might have been taking a very literal interpretation of her promise to McGonagall to use the TT only for classes.  Since it seems that part of McGonagall's purpose was to teach Hermione a lesson about overweening ambition, that might even have been *intentional* on McG's part.

On the other hand, maybe the TT ceases to function if the user falls unconscious.  Or maybe Hermione decided it was just too risky.  If she did her studying in the common room and then time-turned back to sleep upstairs, she might have gotten caught in both places by one of her roommates.  If she had gone out into the castle and found someplace private either to study or to sleep, she risked getting caught by Filch or Snape and dragged back to Gryffindor Tower where the other Hermione would have been.  Much better to be awake and aware at all times when using something that potentially dangerous.


>3.  It's physically impossible for there to be more than 2 of the same
>person at the same time.  (Don't ask why: it's a Newton's Law)

Or it's a restriction built into that particular Time Turner.  But Herm wouldn't have had to make three of herself to get the proper amount of sleep.  She would have been time-turning at a different part of the day than the two hours she turned back to attend simultaneous classes in the mornings and afternoons.


Stacy Stroud (deadstop at gte.net)
Hex Entertainment, Inc. (http://www.hexgames.com)